Lesbian Cotton Candy Vendors and other films

20 SECONDS OF JOY -- JENS HOFFMAN, GERMANY

By National PostApril 14, 2008

20 SECONDS OF JOY

JENS HOFFMAN, GERMANY

Screens April 19 at 1:45 p.m., Royal Cinema; April 22 at 1:30 p.m., Alliance Cumberland Cinemas. Screens with 52 Percent. From her first jump off a cliff, you'll think Karine Hollekim has a death-wish. And, in fact, fellow BASE jumper Jeb Corliss clearly explains, "BASE jumping kills people very quick." This visually stunning film follows Hollekim for five years, documenting jump after jump, but also explores the 30-year-old Norwegian's personal life in an attempt to explain why she is addicted to the hazardous sport and how those who love her cope with her dangerous lifestyle. Rating 3 ½ Pitch: Sky is the new surf. Maryam Siddiqi

A somber account of the bombing of Air India 182, which until 9/11 was the deadliest "air-terror" attack in history. The majority of the 329 people killed were Canadians. Though it touches on the why (Sikh separatists who sought the creation of an independent state called Khalistan) and the how (a suitcase bomb made it on-board because of a break-down in the X-ray machine) the film mainly concentrates on the victims and their families. Relying heavily on re-enactments, these staged scenes pale compared to the real-life footage, such as a child's doll plucked from the Atlantic Ocean, but are powerful nonetheless. Rating 3 Pitch: Docudrama is the new documentary.

Mark Medley

ALL TOGETHER NOW

ADRIAN WILLS, CANADA

Screens April 19 at 9:15 p.m., Bloor; April 20 at 3:45 p.m., Bloor.

This start-to-finish look at the creation of the Cirque du Soleil's Beatles-inspired Las Vegas spectacle, Love, will appeal mostly to fans of the band, whose surviving members (and the widows of John Lennon and George Harrison) are interviewed at length. There's some nice archival footage and more than a little tension -- will Yoko break up the show? -- but the story drags a bit in the middle before its rousing crescendo.Rating 2 l½

They are known in Prague as "the demi-gods of Canadian metal." They are beloved by such umlaut-bearers as Motorhead. They are Anvil, and they are going on their first European tour in decades. But crowds don't show, fights break out and the stress level goes to 11. What's wrong? Says drummer Robb Reiner, "I could answer that in one word. Two words. Three words. We haven't got good management." Hilarious, touching, thrashing, true. Rating 3 ½ Pitch: Anvil is the new Spinal Tap. C.K.

AS SLOW AS POSSIBLE

SCOTT SMITH, CANADA

Screens April 18 at 9:30 pm., Royal; April 22 at noon, ROM. Screens with Virtuoso.

A weird pairing of stories. First, in the city of Halberstadt, Germany, an organ is playing a John Cage composition as slowly as possible -- the piece began in 2001 and will conclude in 2640. Second, 33-year-old Vancouverite Ryan Knighton decides to visit the organ in time to hear one note change to another, which happens once in a blue moon. Knighton is slowly going blind, and along the way talks of not being able to see and return a smile, or never knowing what his own face will look like when he is old. A beautiful, mindful, philosophical film that quietly reminds us to slow down and see. Rating 4 Pitch: Deep thought is the new deep time. C.K.

BLOODY CARTOONS

KARSTEN KJAER, DENMARK

Screens April 24 at 9:30 p.m., ROM; April 25 at 7:15 p.m., Innis Town Hall. Screens with The Tadpole, the Rabbit and the Holy Ghost. The cartoons depicting the prophet Muhammad published in Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September, 2005, incited violent protests in several Muslim countries, and also a heightened sensitivity to political correctness in Denmark and other countries. This film sets out to understand why this happened and answer the question, "How much censorship is too much?" Key figures in the conflict from Denmark, France, Lebanon,

Iran, Syria and Turkey are profiled. One of the most interesting things brought to light is that many of the leaders calling for protests against all things Danish had not seen the cartoons before doing so. Not much new information about the conflict is provided, but for those not familiar with the event, this film will catch them up quickly. Rating 3 Pitch: Political correctness is the new political correctness. M.S.

CARNY

ALISON MURRAY, CANADA

Screens April 19 at 9:45 p.m., Royal; April 21 at 11:55 p.m., Bloor. Screens with Murphy's Law. Lesbian cotton candy vendors, sad clowns and alcoholic lovers populate the cast of carnies Alison Murray follows in her doc about life on the county fair road. Murray alternates between gritty Super 8 footage and slick digital images as she explores the people driving the carnival trade, most of whom are lovable outsiders. Unfortunately, her fascination with the workers' miserable backgrounds feels exploitative toward the end, as if the documentary had turned into one of the fair's very own freak shows. Rating 2

Pitch: The carnival is the new Jerry Springer Show. Barry Hertz

CARTS OF DARKNESS

MURRAY SIPLE, CANADA

Screens April 21 at 7 p.m., Royal Cinema; April 24 at noon, Isabel Bader. Screens with White Vans. Just down from Whistler, where all the preppy snowboarders congregate, is a neighbourhood in North Vancouver where a group of homeless men race shopping carts. They may not have a mountain, but they have Mountain Highway, a long and winding road where they can reach speeds of over 60 km/h (if you ever see an abandoned shopping cart by the side of the road and wonder how it got there, this might be your answer). Siple, who used to make documentaries on the slopes, ended up in a wheelchair after a car accident and hadn't made a film in 10 years. This is his first since then, and it's an interesting combination of rich cinematography and poor souls --a simple story, but one that's bursting with colour. Rating 3

Pitch: Shopping carts are the new snowboards. Vanessa Farquharson

CLUB NATIVE

TRACEY DEER, CANADA

Screens April 18 at 6:30 p.m.,

Bloor; April 20 at 2: 15 p. m., ROM.

Questions of culture, romance and identity dominate Deer's take on mixed-race marriages among First Nations people. Deer covers a wide range of aboriginal issues but wisely sticks to documenting four Mohawk women: Deer's sister, pregnant with a Texan's child; a former Olympian in love with a white colleague; a mixed-race teenager; and a half-native woman living in Quebec's Kahnawake reserve. The combination of Deer's strong subjects and her polished style make for a compelling film that offers no easy answers. Rating 3

Pitch: Mixed-race marriages are the new same-sex marriages. B.H.

EMOTICONS

HEDDY HONIGMANN, NETHERLANDS

Screens April 18 at 7:15 p.m., ROM; April 19 at noon, ROM. Screens with Kids + Money. Honigmann examines the use of Internet chat rooms and gaming sites by teenage girls who can't find a peer group in the real world but make friends online. There are interesting stories here, such as the recent immigrant who compares notes with other outsiders, or the girl who relaxes by beating boys in a first-person shooter game, but no one story gets the treatment it deserves. Rating 1 ½

Pitch: Chat rooms are the new smokers' lounge. C.K.

FLICKER

NIK SHEEHAN, CANADA

Screens April 23 at 7 p.m., Royal Cinema; April 26 at 7 p.m., Isabel Bader.

The whole concept of being able to get high -- like, really high, with hallucinations and everything -- without having to take any drugs, is a fascinating one. That such a state could be accomplished with nothing but a light bulb and a spinning cylinder is even more intriguing. And yet, somehow, a documentary about this turns out to be incredibly dull. Watching as one person after another sits in front of this Dream Machine with eyes closed, remaining perfectly still and saying nothing for minutes on end, other than the occasional, "Wow, man, this is sooo amazing," is like witnessing a bunch of people get drunk and stoned at a party while you're painfully sober. The story here deviates into a sort of biopic of Brion Gysin and looks at his intimate relationship with William S. Burroughs, but again it becomes frustrating when it devolves into aimless conversation about how great all the beat poets were. Rating 2

Pitch: Strobe lights are the new LSD.

V.F.

FLOW: FOR LOVE OF WATER

IRENA SALINA, U.S.A.

Screens April 24 at 6:30 p.m., Bloor; April 26 at 3:30 p.m., Bloor.

This is a scattershot documentary, but one thing is made clear: Clean, adequate drinking water is a birthright. Yet from suburban Michigan to the slums of India, big corporations are trampling that right and charging people more than they can possibly afford for the stuff of life. Also, it's getting dirtier and harder to find every year. A cri de coeur in this, the U.N.'s International Year of Sanitation. Rating 2 ½ Pitch: Polluted, expensive water is the new inconvenient truth. C.K.

THE FORGOTTEN WOMAN

DILIP MEHTA, CANADA/INDIA

Screens April 24 at 7 p.m., Isabel Bader Theatre.

Dilip Mehta, brother of Deepa Mehta, was working on his sister's film Water when he noticed the appalling conditions many Indian widows are forced to live in. Throughout this unsettling film, he examines how some 40 million women survive after being abandoned by their families: Most are so helpless that they rely on the charity of local ashrams. Mehta, an accomplished photographer in his own right, has a captivating eye when it comes to capturing images of despair. Rating 3 Pitch:Widows are the new orphans.

After wondering what sort of world he'll be leaving to his young son, director Andrew Nisker enlists the McDonalds, a typical urban family who also happen to be two very kind friends, to keep their garbage for three months. (Though one wonders why Nisker wasn't the guinea pig in this experiment.) During this time, while everything from baby diapers to wrapping paper from Christmas gifts are kept in the family's garage, the McDonalds learn what impact every consumer action they make can have on the environment. Though it can get a little academic, the film is an eyeopener and will make you think about what you're leaving out for curbside pickup. Rating 3

Rossellini stars in six one-minute shorts, each of which begins "If I were a ..." and describes what a dragonfly, firefly, spider, etc., do during a night on the town. Often funny, occasionally icky, perfect for arthrophiles -- if you know what I mean. Rating 3

Pitch: Exoskeletons are the new breasts. C.K.

THE LAST CONTINENT

JEAN LEMIRE, CANADA

Screens April 19 at 4 p.m., Isabel

Bader Theatre; April 20 at 12: 45 p. m., Bloor.

Lemire must have wanted to get away from his 2006 film The White Planet, which looked at life at the top of the world, because The Last Continent finds him telling the story of a group of scientists who winter over in Antarctica to study climate change. Stark beauty mixes with incredible danger as storms threaten to destroy their ship, but they witness first-hand the effects of global warming; their Antarctic winter is milder than Toronto's. Beautifully shot if a touch over-narrated. Rating 3 ½

Pitch: Antarctica is the new Arctic.

C.K.

MANUFACTURED LANDSCAPES

JENNIFER BAICHWAL, CANADA

Screens April 20 at 11:30 a.m., Isabel Bader Theatre.

Edward Burtynsky has been amazing gallery-goers for years with his pictures of giant incursions: shipbreaking yards in Bangladesh; North American pit mines and quarries; the Three Gorges dam. Baichwal goes inside the photographs, opening with an astonishing six-minute tracking shot through a giant Chinese plant called "the factory of the world." She and Burtynsky let the pictures speak, refusing to sermonize. Rating 3 ½ Pitch: Industry is the new tectonics.

C.K.

MECHANICAL LOVE

PHIE AMBO, DENMARK

Screens April 24 at 7 p.m., Alliance Cumberland Cinemas; April 26 at 2 p.m., Royal. Screens with Peter and Ben.

The Japanese have a word, sonzaikan, which roughly translates as "presence." It's what we feel when someone is standing next to us, but we also feel it when we're on the phone. Ambo follows a robotics engineer who is trying to discover whether androids have sonzai-kan And what about "geminoids," his term for exact replicas of people that are then remote-controlled by those people? Or robot pets for the elderly? A spooky, thought-provoking peak into the future of human-machine relationships. Rating 3 Pitch: Are androids the new people?

C.K.

THE MAN WHO CROSSED THE SAHARA

CORBETT MATTHEWS, CANADA

Screens April 22 at 7 p.m., Alliance Cumberland Cinemas; April 25 at 1:30, Innis Town Hall. Screens with Mr. Edison's Ear. Filmmaker Frank Cole was obsessed with death and wanted to dance with it at close range, embarking on a solo trek across the world's largest desert and living to tell the tale; or almost. After working on a film about the adventure for 10 years, he went back for one more look at the Sahara and was murdered. Well-liked by friends, his parents and a girlfriend, Cole nonetheless fails to emerge clearly from their recollections and his own footage. Rating 2 Pitch: For solo crossings, deserts are the new oceans. C.K.

An intensely personal look at Allis and Charlie, a 1960s couple who rely on psychiatry to help with their marriage. The couple's four children are quickly brought into therapy as well, and everyone

is asked to keep audio records of their thoughts for review by their doctors. What quickly becomes apparent are the roles Allis tries to maintain -- obedient patient and wife, strong mother and independent woman--and how difficult it is to succeed in one, never mind four. At times the film is uncomfortably intimate, and could use some sort of set up explaining the state of psychiatric medicine during this time period. Rating 2 ½

Pitch: Home movies are the new group therapy. M.S.

PARADISE

JERZY SLADKOWSKI, SWEDEN

Screens April 19 at 2:15 p.m., ROM; April 22 at 6:45 p.m., Al Green. Screens with My Croatian Nose. Hans and Kerstin, a nattering couple approaching their 65th anniversary, are redecorating their kitchen. For reasons unknown, Sladkowski decided to film their adventures. While the two octogenarians are charming, they're not nearly fascinating enough to devote an hour's time to. As I watched the couple shop for wallpaper, I wondered what my own grandparents were doing, which was instantly more entertaining than sitting through Paradise. Rating 1

Pitch: Seniors are the new boredom. B.H.

PASSAGE

JOHN WALKER, CANADA

Screens April 20 at 9:45 p.m., Royal; April 23 at 4:15 p.m., ROM.

Walker's film centres around the story of John Rae, an explorer for the Hudson's Bay Company, and Sir John Franklin, the British captain of a doomed 1840s mission tasked with finding the fabled Northwest Passage. Rae, who discovered just why Franklin failed, is a fascinating underdog to root for. Shame then that Walker splits the film in two -- one part dedicated to Rae's journey and the other to modern-day performers re-enacting history. The juxtaposition is more often jarring than inspired. Rating 2

Pitch: The Northwest Passage is the new Atlantis. B.H.

THE PULL

ANDY BLUBAUGH, U.S.A.

Screens April 24 at 9:30 p.m., Alliance Cumberland Cinemas; April 26, 4 p.m., Isabel Bader. Screens with Suddenly, Last Winter. Two friends who share a love of cycling decide to share a love of each other, but put an expiration

date on the relationship. But unless you're riding a tandem bike, cycling is a solitary activity, and the men realize that even though they are together, they are miles apart when it comes to their romance. It's difficult to become emotionally invested in either lover, and therefore, trying to understand their forced breakup becomes more effort than it's worth. Rating 1

Pitch: Deadline dating is the new speed dating. M.S.

THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GRUMPY BURGER

MATT GALLAGHER, CANADA

Screens April 20 at 7 p.m., Royal Cinema; April 23 at 11:59 p.m., Bloor Cinema.

Much like Lost in La Mancha, except that instead of Don Quixote, it's a guy from Windsor who may or may not have invented fast food, and instead of Terry Gilliam coming undone, it's Marshall Sfalcin, a director who's known -- or rather unknown -- for making low-budget monster movies in his basement. As a doc within a doc, it's a strong portrait of the filmmaker as a young man. By the end, Sfalcin must question whether he's trying to make this documentary because there's a documentary being made about him, whether his heart is truly in it -- and the harsh reality is that even if his heart is, the money isn't. Rating 2 ½ Pitch: Windsor is the new Hollywood. V.F.

S&M: SHORT AND MALE

HOWARD GOLDBERG, CANADA

Screens April 24 at 7 p.m., Royal; April 27 at 1:45 p.m., Isabel Bader Theatre. Screens with $4 Haircut. The film starts as a bit of a whinge: Yes, short guys have troubles, but there are no short lynchings, short

pogroms or short hate crimes (unless you count that Randy Newman song). Far more interesting is when Goldberg follows a young man who had surgery to make him taller; they break his legs and stretch them apart as the bone tries to grow back, giving new meaning to no pain, no gain. Or the short guy in China who sued the bank that refused to hire him because of a bogus height requirement. Rating 2 ½ Pitch: Short is the new black. C.K.

Morris, who famously turned the camera on former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and let him talk (The Fog of War) does the same thing to the U.S. Army soldiers suspected and convicted of abuse of prisoners in Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. The photos of a female soldier holding a prisoner on a leash and a pyramid of naked men tell a story, but not the whole story. To be fair, neither does this film, but it is a chilling account in the participants' own words of what happens when abuse and degradation become a way of life, further clouded by the fog of war. Rating 3 ½ Pitch: Abu Ghraib is the new My Lai. C.K.

If you haven't seen half your family for decades and are finally reunited, but only for 48 hours, what do you say? What do you do? The meeting ultimately becomes something at

once beautiful and awkward, loving but temporal, heartwarming while at the same time heartwrenching. Director Min Sook Lee captures all these opposing forces when she visits North and South Korea to film a select few families permitted to see one another for the first time since the nation became divided. The process is strictly monitored and staged in a drab hotel at the border, making for a cold and bizarre setting, but the emotions here run deeper than any wall. As Lee, pregnant at the time, prepares to start a family of her own, she too learns something valuable about the endurance of the human spirit. Rating 3 Pitch: Reunions are the new break-ups. V.F.

"I don't have regrets about the decisions that were made," says James Orbinski at the beginning of this film, "but I have complete outrage at the circumstances." The former president of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders), in researching his upcoming memoir, takes audiences back to Somalia some 15 years after he was stationed there during the genocide. He meets old friends, confronts past tragedies and essentially tries to find the meaning of life without being overly morose about it. From the director of Shake Hands With the Devil, the themes and trajectory of Triage are notably similar -- as are the horribly moving shots of the wounded, the starving and the dead -- but credit must be given to those involved in the editing and cinematography for the impeccably crafted storytelling and slick, professional style. Rating 3

Pitch: Orbinski is the new Dallaire.

V.F.

VESTERBRO

MICHAEL NOER, DENMARK

Screens April 23 at 9:30 p.m., Royal Cinema; April 24 at 11:59 p.m., Bloor Cinema.

Julie and Martin are a twentysomething couple with a video camera and a healthy dose of narcissism. Normally, this would make for navel-gazing footage but these two have some tricks up their sleeve: For one, they're incredibly natural in front of the lens, which makes for a true voyeuristic feel; and two, they encounter a string of emotional challenges no one would ever want to endure in a lifetime, let alone a year. Psychologists and sociologists should take note-- this is the face of young and modern romance, with its highest highs and lowest lows all crammed into 90 minutes. Rating 3 Pitch: Couples filming is the new couples therapy. V.F.

The title suggests a counterfactual history of U.S. policy in Vietnam. But the film spends most of its 80 minutes on a fascinating look at how President Kennedy handled the military crises, followed by a brief discussion of what President Lyndon Johnson did in Vietnam. It's a remarkable history lesson and a contrast of foreign policy styles, but nothing more.Rating 3

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